I was extremely pleased to get this photograph

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

― Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities

In some respects, I have experienced the summer from Hell. And I don’t want to stay in Hell any longer. In other respects, it has been the summer from Heaven and I want a lot more of it. Like Charles Dickens said, “They were the best of times; they were the worst of times.”

The troubles started at the end of 2023 when I accidentially pitched myself down the stairs in our home, and, frankly, was lucky to be alive and not paralyzed. I had literally sailed down the stairs head first until it collided abruptly with hard prejudice, against the bulkhead, leaving a big hole where my head hit. I hit the bulk head nearly 7 feet above the stair underneatb where the collision occurred. That pitched me back onto my ample derriere and slid the rest of way down. Hitting that board, I now believe saved me from more grievous injury. I lay there utterly defeated, but without broken bones or paralysis. I think I was lucky. Very lucky.

I did however have a torn meniscus which interfered with my enjoyment. Then I carelessly affixed my camera to its tripod on the patio of the house we were renting in San Tan Valley Arizona and it fell relegating it to the dump heap. I did have an old spare camera, but I was grumpy.

As a result, I was unable to do the things in Arizona that I liked the most. Except for attending Arizona State University and numerous (too numerous?) happy hour with friends. I was not able to swim the breas stroke and hiking was very difficult.

When we got back to Canada I was determined to buy a new camera and a better one at that. That is what I did. And it was a dandy camera.  Much too expensive for a schlep photographer like me to be honest. Then I made a bad mistake. I jammed the camera’s adapter into my best lens, which I needed to photography wild flowers and the two were stuck.  Like lovers in a loveless marriage. I wasted most of the summer to get the lens and adapter repaired. The details are a long pitiless story which I will spare my faithful readers.

Finally, a couple of days ago, I was back in business. I went to the English Country Garden at the Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg to try to photograph hummingbirds. The camera has some special awesome technology that makes it ideal for that purpose.

However, because of my malfeasance and making my fantastic camera unavailable for most of the summer, I had been unable to complete the steep learning curve to figure out how to fully use this technical marvel of a camera. I had learned the basics most of which I had sadly forgotten.  I realize, as a result, that any attempts to capture images of the extremely illusive hummingbirds at the English Country Garden.  I realized I would have to learn on the fly. And I knew this would not be easy. I feared my mental technology was not upto the photo technology.

I went with my friend, Sheldon Emberly and his friend, who I think is now also my friend,  Bev Giesbrecht. These people had already been photographing humming birds for 2 hours before I got there. And they got some great shots. Needless to say, I was jealous.

I feared it would be the worst of times.

To be continued.